The Bucket List.

THINGS YOU HAVE DONE DURING YOUR LIFETIME:

() Gone on a blind date
(x) Skipped school
(x) Watched someone die
(x) Been to Canada
(x) Been to Mexico
(x ) Been to Florida
( ) Been to Hawaii
( x) Been to Iceland
(x) Been on a plane
( ) Been on a helicopter
(x) Been lost
( ) Gone to Washington, DC
(x) Swam in the ocean
(x) Cried yourself to sleep
(x) Played cops and robbers
(x) Ran away from home
() Recently coloured with crayons
( ) Sang Karaoke
( ) Paid for a meal with coins only
( ) Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch
(x) Read one book more than 3 times
(x) Watched one movie more than 3 times
(x) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't
() Made prank phone calls
( x) Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans
(x) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose & elsewhere
(x) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
(x) Danced in the rain
(x) Written a letter to Santa Claus
(x) Been kissed under the mistletoe
() Watched the sunrise with someone
(x) Blown bubbles
(x) Gone ice-skating
(x) Gone to the movies
() Walked more than 20 miles in one day
( ) Been deep sea fishing
( ) Driven across the United States
( ) Been in a hot air balloon
( ) Been sky diving
( x) Gone snowmobiling
() Lived in more than one country
(x) Lay down outside at night and admired the stars while listening to the crickets
(x) Seen a falling star and made a wish
( ) Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser
(x ) Seen the Statue of Liberty
( ) Gone to the Grand Canyon
( ) Seen a space shuttle lift off in person
( ) Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle
( x) Been on a cruise
(x) Traveled by train
(x) Traveled by motorcycle
(x) Been horse back riding
( ) Ridden on a San Francisco Cable Car
(x) Been to Disney World/Land
(x) Truly believe in the power of prayer
( x) Been in a rain forest
(x) seen whales in the ocean
(x) Been to Niagara Falls
() Ridden on an elephant
(x) Swam with dolphins
( ) Been to the Olympics
( ) Walked on the Great Wall of China
( ) saw and heard a glacier calf
( ) Been spinnaker flying
( ) Been parasailing
(x) Been water-skiing
() Been snow-skiing
(x ) Broken a bone
( ) Been to Westminster Abbey
( ) Been to the Louvre
( ) Swam in the Mediterranean
(x) Been to a Major League Baseball game
( ) Been to a National Football League game
( ) Been to a college level gymnastics meet
( ) Installed a toilet
() Been the first to say "I love you"
( x) Been to Jamaica
(x) Shot a bow and arrow
( ) Played tetherball
(x) Done a toboggan run
(x) Played tennis
( ) Been to the San Diego Zoo
( ) Been on an African Safari
( ) Been jeeping in Aruba
( ) Won money in Las Vegas
(x ) Lost your "cookies" on a boat
( ) Been white-water rafting
() Driven a tractor
( ) Been to Paradise Island in the Bahamas
() Been 4-wheeling
( ) Been to a Native American Pow-Wow
(x) Sang beside a campfire
( ) Gotten a foreign object stuck up your nose
( ) Been to Senior Frog's in Mexico (Sadly, it's blown away!!!!)
(x) Owned your own home
( ) Driven through the Tetons in the middle of the night
(x) Received a professional massage
( ) Seen a UFO
( ) Seen a David Copperfield magic show in person
( ) Run a marathon
( ) Floated in the Great Salt Lake
() Watched the birth of puppies or kittens
() Piloted a real airplane (with help)
( ) Done a firewalk
(x) Built a snowman
( ) Touched a stingray
(x) Witnessed the birth of a baby
( ) Been to a hot air balloon festival
( ) Been to an ice sculpture festival
( ) Been to an "Oldies Fest"
(x) Had your computer break down without backups
(x) Skipped a rock across a lake, pond, or river
(x) Been canoeing
( ) Been kyacking
() Completed a "ropes course"
(x) Been the first to say "I'm sorry"
() Had a psychic/metaphysical reading
( ) Hit a hole-in-one
() Been to a professional golf tournament
() Attended a Beach Boys concert outdoors
() Ridden the Matterhorn at Disneyland, CA
( ) Driven around the real Matterhorn in Switzerland
( ) Eaten turtle meat
( ) Eaten kangaroo meat
(x) Played on a set of drums
(x ) Been to Germany
( ) Been to Austria
( x) Been to Switzerland
( ) Been to Spain
( ) Been to Africa
(x) Jumped on a trampoline
( ) Climbed a 50 ft. "telephone" pole an stood up on top of it
(x) Been rollerblading or rollerskating
( ) Been inside a real European castle
(x) Caught a fly between your hands
( ) Caught a fly with chopsticks
( ) Been bungee jumping and survived
( ) Avoided a heart attack while watching your child bungee jump
( ) Witnessed an active volcano in person
( ) Made a "cake" from everything in the kitchen cupboard
(x) Jumped off a diving board
( ) Participated in a Drum Circle
( ) Grown a crystal at home
() Fingerpainted with pudding
(x) Got rid of a pain by tapping acupressure points
(x) Camped out for a week or more
( ) Been to visit the pyramids of Egypt
( ) Been to Lake Powell
(x) Played a musical instrument
( ) Ridden in a gondola
( ) Been to Rio de Janeiro
( ) Driven through the tunnel under the Hudson Bay
(x) Used a pendulum
( ) Been in at least 30 of the 50 US states
() Been skinny-dipping in the daylight
( ) Opened your door and was greeted by a wild animal
( ) Tried to catch a bird by putting salt on its tail
(x ) Played a fast, hot game of Ping-Pong
( x) Sold some art that you created yourself
() Asked for a raise and got it with a smile
() Used a lathe or band saw
(x ) Been to the West Indies
(x) Played Frisbee with a dog
(x) Let a dog or cat sleep in your bed, under the covers
(x) Thrown a grape into a friend's open mouth
(x) Caught a thrown grape with your mouth
(x) Played Pictionary and laughed so hard you cried
() Found a $20 bill in the bushes
() Built a tree house
(x) Swung on a homemade swing
( ) Belly danced in a Greek restaurant
(x) Sent or delivered an anonymous gift
() Won a stuffed animal at an amusement park
( ) Been sailing in the Caribbean
( ) Driven through a herd of buffalo
( ) Raced a car on the the salt flats
(x) Run through the sprinklers
( ) Created a sculpture you were proud of
( ) Visited the pyramids and ruins of the Yucatan
(x) Played Poker, with or without $
(x) Eaten vegetables you grew yourself
( ) Seen an authentic crop circle
(x) Bought something you wish you hadn't
( ) Made homemade cinnamon rolls from scratch
() Re-upolstered a piece of furniture
( ) Climbed to the top of a 10,000 ft. mountain just to watch the sun rise


How many have you done???????????????????????

Bittersweet

This coming week is going to be extremely bittersweet for me.

The Elgin CCAC team will be moving back to brand new digs in St. Thomas while I will be remaining in London. I love finally being part of a team. It is wonderful to have other people to bounce things off of and to pick their brains and I dearly love all of the London placement team. I am, however, going to miss the daily face-to-face contact with the people with whom I have worked for the past 20 years.

Somehow the telephone just doesn't have the same intimacy. It certainly takes away from the comraderie that working together face-to-face has.

I am also going to really, really miss my boss. Barb has been one of the most incredible bosses that I have ever had. She is friendly, empathetic and most importantly, she follows up. I have always known that when I needed something, I could depend on her to get it. Unfortunately, my new boss just doesn't provide the same feeling of trust.

On the up side, I DO NOT have to pack up all my belongings again and then unpack them at the other end. I will not be trying to pack and do my job. Most importantly, over the next 2 or 3 months, some of the work that I am expected to do and just simply am unable to do because there are just so many hours in a day will be gradually transferred to the Community Case Managers and my job will become more and more like the London Placement Case Manager jobs - frantically busy still, but I won't feel guilty knowing that there is a stack of things that I an simply unable to get to.

I guess things balance themselves out over time. I will just have to develop new ways of maintaining contact with my Elgin co-workers and create new relationships with the London groups. As for my new boss............ oh well!!

Books - How Many Have You read

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen x
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte x
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling -
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - X
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte x
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell - X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - X
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy X
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller x
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier x
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - X
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - X
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens x
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Gahame -
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy x
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens x
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis -
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis -
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne -
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell - X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - X
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy x
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding - X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility -Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens x
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck x
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy x
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding -
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville x
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - X
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker x
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett -
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker -
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White -
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom -
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery x
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute X
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas X
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare - X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl -
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo X

So, I have managed to read 35 of these books.
This will likely remain my lifetime achievement as the only time I have for reading these days I spend reading the non-fiction books that I want to read.

How do you stack up - how many of these books have you read?